Danny Zulkarnain, what a promising writer he is!

Like always, I'm very nervous when talking about this subject - Siti Nurhaliza. To review an article about this Queen of Malay Pop, is definitely, NOT an easy task. At least for me, who in the past has been branded by a number of Siti Nurhaliza fans as "CT hater". I sincerely think that the label is too BIG for me, and I personally think, "kurang gemarkan Siti" will be an appropriate one instead.

Danny picked a bold title - (the) most influential artiste in Malaysia. With a bold title and an attention grabber first paragraph, I said to myself, what a promising start!

Nevertheless, after reading it two times, I can't help to say to myself, "sayang, sangat!"

Indisputably, Danny has one of most interesting subjects and I totally agree that Siti Nurhaliza is the most influential artiste in Malaysia in late 90s and the first decade of this millennium. No doubt about it.

However, even not a fan myself, nothing in Danny's write up that is a brand new information to me. I was hoping that he would pick the specific moments in Siti Nurhaliza's 12 or 13 years of singing career in order to illustrate how Siti influenced us, the Malaysians.

Siti taught us that glory is for hardworking people like her who took the bus from Termeloh to Angkasapuri to sing in the final of Bintang HMI or to her recording of her debut and self-titled album, Siti Nurhaliza or all of the show in her early days as an artiste.

To me, the MOMENT of her career is not what have been described by Danny, but when she officially dethroned one of our favourite DIVAs, Ziana Zain, in the final of Juara Lagu 1997 with beautiful rendition of Jerat Percintaan. She (at the time was NOBODY) proved to us that if you work hard, do your very best, you can take anyone, including the giants in the industry.

She might be taking raw eggs in the toilet behind the stage (yeap, another rumour I guess), but who cares, so long as she sings beautifully on stage. It is so good to find out, whether or not, the fact that she has NO stage fright like the big names such as Ning Baizura, Anuar Zain dan Ziana Zain, is due to her early days' informal singing training while selling kueh mueh from one door to another in her neighbourhood. Or her experience singing at the wedding at early age? Even Ramli MS himself was impressed with this quality of Siti.

Personally, I'm not that impressed with all those hundreds of accolades that Siti has won so far. But, I'm totally puzzled with the seven or eight years of Siti Nurhaliza-mania. At one point, in any competition or festival that Siti was in it, other contestants already put up their white flags even the competition hasn't begin. Mawi might have created a similar tsunami, but his is only for 2 or 3 years. And Siti Nurhaliza did well in both competitions with professional jury or without jury. Although I might agree to a few critics that one or two awards that Siti Nurhaliza had won (with professional jury) might be based on sentiement, rather than total merit, but the fact that professional jury can also be blinded by her aura, is totally amazing to me!

And her decision NOT to take pictures with male colleagues, to me, is another defining moment in her career life. Although, some might consider it as a pure gimmick, I personally think it is the best gimmick (if it is, indeed, a gimmick) that came out from Siti Nurhaliza. It is a total blow to those mengada-ngada artistes (also known as pelakon/artis majalah) who frequently picked by Mama Juwie or Huzz to feature in their magazines. I totally buy Siti's reasons. Why should she takes pictures with other male artiste, if she's hardly in the same picture as these people. What is the rationale of taking pictures of two persons pretending to be a couple - hugging and staring like a teaser of a porno film (do they have a teaser for porno?).

I can go on and on, but my point is most Malaysians feel Siti is very related to them. Some girls might see themselves in Siti (in her style and lifestyle) and some mothers might dreaming of having an obidient child like her. And the boys? I let yourself to answer it.

In summary, the said article by Danny Zulkarnain is a good summary of Siti Nurhaliza and it will be a good reading to new or potential fans of this Number ONE singer in Malaysia. Nevertheless, Danny did not do justice to the title of his article because after reading it more than once, I still can't list down points on how influential Siti Nurhaliza is.

Sayang sangat, Danny!